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The Power of Admitting Ignorance

I’ve often gone through my career feeling like an impostor.

I work with some ridiculously smart people and know many more in my industry. They seem interested in my opinion on things, and I try to deliver. But many times I don’t know the answer. So I sit wondering how the hell I got here. I know people who can bullshit their way through the answer to a question, but I lack that special talent. So I usually just admit that I don’t know.

Mood music:

That answer has only led to more good fortune. We think we’ll be dismissed if we admit ignorance, but the smarter folks among us actually appreciate the honesty. When I write about complex security issues in my work blogs, I often admit my befuddlement and open the floor for discussion in an effort to make readers — and myself — more aware of the given topic. In this blog, my frequent admission of ignorance clicks with readers, who find comfort in knowing they’re not the only clueless people on Earth.

The benefits of admitting you don’t know is the focus of a new book, simply titled I Don’t Know by Leah Hager Cohen. I haven’t read it yet, but I have read the essay it’s based on and have listened to her on WBUR, the Boston NPR affiliate.

It’s a refreshing, comforting, even, take on learning to honor one’s doubt. In the essay that started the project, Cohen writes:

Fear engenders lying. If we want our colleges and universities to be bastions of academic integrity, we need to look honestly at the ways they might encourage fakery by stoking fear. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Émile: Or, Treatise on Education,” the philosopher writes, “’I do not know’ is a phrase which becomes us.” Too often we fear uttering these words, convinced that doing so will diminish us, will undermine our status and block our advancement.

In fact these words liberate and empower. So much of the condition of being human involves not knowing. The more comfortable we become with this truth, the more fully and unabashedly we may inhabit our skins, our souls, and — speaking of learning — the more able we become to grow.

As someone who used to suffer from crippling fear and anxiety, I get that now. Fear of being diminished in the minds of those you respect makes the lies pour from your mouth before you have time to process what you’re actually saying. Then you’ve made matters worse.

By admitting ignorance from the outset and saying “I don’t know,” you’ll have spared yourself a lot of future pain and indignity and instead set yourself up to become wiser. It’s good to see that point has been articulated in a book.

I Don't Know book cover

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Hope and Happiness Amid a Government Shutdown

Forget about the effect the government shutdown has on mental health services; government mental health services suck anyway.

Instead, let’s focus on keeping ours head on straight when political horror stories send our fear and anxiety into orbit.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/lpRzYEHwnUo

I mentioned last week how I used to latch onto world events as if my life depended on it. TV media reports political squabbles as it would report about war: loud graphics, chilling music. Coverage of the government shutting down at midnight was no different.

I don’t want to minimize the impact. A lot of good people get screwed when the government shuts down. Family trips to national parks are ruined. If you need a passport renewed in time for, say, a honeymoon abroad, you’re likely throwing things across a room about now. Some of my conservative friends are making comments about how nobody will notice the shutdown and how, as a result, they’ll have proof that we don’t need government. Some of that is true. But some of that is hyperbole, too.

All that is beside the point. Here’s why I’m not quaking in my boots right now.

I realized a long time ago that I can’t tie my happiness to the success or failure of government. I used to believe that electing the right people would lead to a sunny future for me and everyone else.

But our leaders disappoint us again and again. Democrat or Republican, it doesn’t matter. Politicians are far more interested in keeping their jobs than standing for the greater good. To some extent that’s always been the case, yet it seems worse today. A few years ago, I realized I’d have to find my hope and happiness someplace else.

In the process, I found that the main components of that happiness were in front of me all along: loving family members, loyal friends and work I could take satisfaction in. I also realized it was completely in my power to be loving and loyal to others as well. That support system keeps the world spinning, and no folly of government could ruin that.

We’re all imperfect individuals. While I try to be a good father, husband and friend, I’ve done a lousy job getting along with some family members. And while I’ve exercised my absolute power to have a healthy, fit body and mind, I’ve also done my fair share of abusing both, consequences be damned. The government hasn’t played much of a role in either of those things.

Realizing that elected officials could only have a minimal role in my day-to-day life set me free in a lot of ways, for better or worse. The government shutdown isn’t bothering me in the slightest.

But that’s just my personal experience. If you do depend on government services, I’m sorry you have to go through this.

Super Broken Government

Image source: CNN.com

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Flying on September 11

One of my biggest moments of shame came a week after September 11, 2001, when I scrubbed a planned trip to Arizona for a relative’s wedding. I was terrified to get on an airplane, and fear won out. Not only did I miss an important day in a loved one’s life, I also deprived my wife of the same thing. I didn’t want her flying, either.

Mood music:

I’ve talked to many people over the years who have similar stories and whose fear of flying lasts to this day. I got over the flying fear several years ago and love doing so now. But it’s always been hard to fault people who have vowed not to get on a plane if it’s the anniversary day of the attacks. For some, it’s not even about fear and superstition. The memories of that day are simply too much to take, and nothing will make you fix on such a thing like being on an aircraft on the anniversary.

But last year I flew on September 11. And it was one of the most peaceful flights I had all year.

I was coming home from the CSO Security Standard. I was managing editor of CSO at the time, and the Brooklyn event was a favorite, because it always coincided with the anniversary. New Yorkers showed us how to stare down adversity during and after the attacks, and there’s something special about being in NYC around that time of year. But I never managed to fly on 9/11 until last year. I always left on September 9 or 12.

Truth be told, I didn’t think much about the anniversary when I went to the airport. I was too tired to think about much of anything after a super-busy few days. I was also more focused on being annoyed with the third-world experience that is LaGuardia Airport. But once we took off, I looked out the window and could see Lower Manhattan, with the Freedom Tower rising up next to where the Twin Towers once stood. I could clearly see the two memorial pools built in the footprints of the towers as well.

It brought my mind right back to the anniversary. But it also inspired me in a major way, which suppressed any feeling of dread or sadness I might have otherwise had.

I’ve been to the site many times. But on the ground it can be hard to get the full appreciation of what’s taking shape there. It is, after all, a large construction site with all the noise and barriers that drive a person to distraction. It’s also not easy to get a clear view of the memorial unless you’re right there, behind the fencing, boards and signage. Seeing it from above was quite a trip, indeed.

It wasn’t an exercise in banishing fear, since I had already overcome the fear of flying years before. But it was one of those moments that marks you forever.

In this case, it’s a mental mark I’m happy to have.

World Trade Center

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Let’s Talk About Mental Illness

An old friend and former workmate, Steve Repsys, has started a new community on Facebook called Let’s Talk About Mental Illness. If you have ever suffered from a mental disorder, I urge you to join and participate in the discussion.

Mood music:

I first met Steve nearly 16 years ago when I started my run as editor of the weekly newspaper The Billerica Minuteman. He had just started as a reporter. Neither of us knew at the time that we had mental illnesses — OCD for me and generalized anxiety disorder for him. It would be many years before either of us was diagnosed. In the meantime, we worked together in an office in Chelmsford, Mass. I was the boss and acted like it.

I was always stressed about getting the paper done by deadline. Quality didn’t really matter to me. OCD will do that to you: Getting the task done always takes priority over doing it right. Steve was the whipping boy, the sole reporter. I pushed him hard, nearly to the breaking point. He never let me down. But along the way, he would work so hard that his mind would go into loops. One loop involved a worry about finding an apartment. Another was about whether he would get a promotion. All normal things to worry about, except that he was clinically unable to stop it.

I carried on the same way about other things. Whenever the going got tough, we would both bitch about everyone who made it possible.

During the small windows of downtime, we would convene in my apartment a few steps away from the office and play Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. Star Wars was very important to us back then.

Steve eventually went on to another role in the company, and I went to The Eagle-Tribune. We both settled down and had kids. And in recent years, from different states, we’ve come to grips with our mental diseases.

Steve and I reconnected on Facebook a few years ago and it was clear to me that he was in the middle of a storm I had already passed through. He knew he had a problem and set about dealing with it. Because I write this blog, he has regularly sought me out for advice. I’ve seen the good and ugly of his struggle up close and watched a year ago as he hit bottom. He has since made awesome strides forward and went public about his experience in June. The response he received has been overwhelming and positive, much as I experienced at the birth of this blog.

That inspired him to start his Facebook page. I’m proud of him for doing the work to get well and for wanting to help others.

“I had signs of mental illness five years ago after the birth of my second daughter,” Steve wrote on Let’s Talk About Mental Illness. “Finally things became so bleak that I was forced to come to terms that I was suffering from a mental illness and I wanted to be around for my wife and two daughters. Admitting to myself I had a problem was the hardest, but the best thing I could have done.”

“This page is meant to give others hope and realize that they are not alone,” he continues. “If there is one thing I have learned is that by opening up and talking about our inner demons, the less scary they become.”

Let's Talk About Mental Illness

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Perception or Reality?

A couple friends who were at the 1992 Lollapalooza show I recently wrote about agreed with my general retelling of events but experienced something much different than I did.

Said one: “I guess it’s true: Perception is reality.”

Mood music:

I couldn’t agree more. It reflects a point I’ve repeatedly tried to drive home: The events I describe in this blog are based on my own personal truths, the most accurate retellings I can offer. But I know my perception of things isn’t exactly the whole picture.

I’ve heard from family and friends over the years who have suggested that my take on particular events was different from how they remembered them. One family member whose privacy I’ll respect here told me that most of my childhood memories are fabrications.

Many people tend to see the world in black and white. Something is either the truth or a lie. Nothing in between. I’m not one of those people.

From my perspective, we all see things our brains try to interpret as honestly as possible, but there’s no objectivity. We have built-in biases and perceptions of the world around us. The result is that if you put 10 people in a room and something eventful happens — a fight or medical emergency, perhaps — two people will tell you what they saw and it’ll differ from what three other people saw. The rest of the room will add different perspectives to the story. This is especially the case if you ask those people to describe the event a year or more later.

In the case of that Lollapalooza show, what I saw was filtered through a brain that was off-balance and sick, which made my memory one of terror. Others will tell you that they were there and were not afraid. They just had a good old time reveling in rock and roll. Some will have seen events through brains that were also unbalanced at the time, but in different ways. I suffered from heightened fear, but someone else could have been prone to death wishes and such.

To really get at the truth, you have to get multiple perspectives from multiple people. The real truth will usually be something in between the opposing perspectives.

This case is no different.

Lollapalooza II

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Five Things That Overwhelm Me

Though I got rid of the fear-based anxiety that kept me indoors and afraid of everything, I still have moments when I get overwhelmed.

Mood music:

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Call it sensory overload or severe impatience, if you will. Or perhaps the latter two are mere byproducts of the first. Here are some examples:

  • Long lines. Whether it’s waiting for a seat in a restaurant, for entry into a movie theater or for boarding a boat, long lines make me crazy inside.Waiting to board the boat
  • Traffic. When the highway becomes a parking lot, I feel claustrophobic. It’s worse when I’m surrounding by a lot of trucks, because they make it difficult to see what’s happening farther up the road.Traffic on the Zakim Bridge
  • Housework. When there’s a lot of cleaning and fixing to do around the house, my brainwaves get scrambled and it becomes difficult to put the tasks in an order that makes sense. So I dart all over the place doing things haphazardly.Cleaning stove
  • Listening to long-winded people. This one seems mean, and I don’t mean for it to be. But when a person corners me for what turns into a long, long story, I start to scream inside. It makes me feel trapped and I feel like the rest of the world is passing me by.Long-winded people
  • Long meetings. I’ll be honest and tell you that business meetings have never been a favorite of mine. True, they are necessary, but it always feels like I could be getting 10 other things done during that time. What really rattles me is when a meeting goes longer than scheduled. I start to fidget in my seat and lose the ability to hear anything anyone is saying.business meeting

Now you’re probably asking yourself, “What does he do about all this?” The answer is not much. These are all things that are part of life. Avoiding them would mean I wouldn’t be living mine. I’d be a recluse, never achieving anything and missing out on a lot of good stuff.

So I put on my game face and trudge on.

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Don’t Let Your Anxiety Inhibit Your Children

The following is a guest post from Jessica Lavery Pozerski, a friend from the information security industry. She was most recently PR manager for security vendor Sophos, and is about to take on a new role handling PR for Vericode. She hails from Billerica, Mass.

Anxiety is something I’ve always suffered with. Even as a child I would become get nervous about a test or walking to school, seemingly out of nowhere.

This isn’t normal childhood fear I’m talking about. I would imagine horrible scenarios in my head, like what if a man in a van tried to grab me on the way to school? Or what if a car swerved onto the sidewalk and hit me or my siblings while we were walking?

After imagining in excruciating detail how everything could go wrong, I’d begin devising a strategy for avoiding the tragedy. I’d come up with a plan for escaping the kidnapper or saving my younger brother and sister from the oncoming traffic.

“What if” was a big part of my childhood vocabulary, and it has remained a consistent theme for me in adulthood.  Even today I imagine terrible scenarios and then come up with a plan for fixing the problem. Go ahead, ask me what my plan is for getting me, my dogs, my daughter, my husband and my brother out of the house if there is a fire or intruder. Some might call this behavior obsessive (it is); I call it be prepared (because I’m a little crazy). I’m a planner, for good things and bad, and my wonderful husband has learned to love this part of me, even if it sometimes drives him nuts.

Given my history of imagining horrible scenarios, I was not surprised to read Shanon Cook’s “When Motherhood Becomes Nightmare” on CNN the other day. It is a great article and one that I could relate to. Since having a child a year and a half ago, I too have dealt with this sudden and urgent feeling of dread that something horrible was going to happen to my child.

A year and half after her birth, this still happens, but I refuse to let my crazy hurt my daughter. I don’t want my anxiety or fears to inhibit her from living a full and exciting life.

So how do I do this when I am terrified that she will slip in the tub and knock out all her teeth or that she will lose an eye when she falls on the playground? Here are a few of my strategies that others may find helpful:

  • I remind myself that I made it through childhood without any major injuries. I climbed trees, used a wagon as a go-cart to race down our hilly street, sledded down steep hills and had lightsaber fights with sticks. And I’m still here. I don’t want my daughter to be reckless, and I’ll protect her from real dangers, but I have to let her climb up that chair herself.
  • I tell myself falling will teach her how to get up again. One of the worse parts of having persistent anxiety is that it stopped me from taking risks. I was too afraid to fail. As a result, I couldn’t accomplish anything great. It wasn’t until I stopped telling myself that my world would end if I failed that I was able to take some risks. I have failed and I’ve moved on; so will she.
  • I’ve seen the results of what happens when parents do everything for their children, and it is scary. Kids who never move out, who can’t hold down a job, who are absolute slobs and don’t know how to take care of themselves, pay bills, do laundry, and so on. That won’t be my daughter. But if I want her to be independent, I have to let her do things herself now.

And if all of that fails, I just walk away — and let her father watch while she does something anxiety inducing. 🙂

Jessica Lavery Pozerski
Jessica Lavery Pozerski and her daughter prepare for some winter fun.
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Traffic Jam Meditiation

When I was younger and more anxious, traffic jams used to push me to the point of madness. I’d let the f-bombs fly. I’d flip people off (I did that once with my future in-laws in the back seat). I’d punch the roof of the car so hard and so often I’d leave dents and tear the fabric.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:5Uw5Hdjb2zAZPR6YJKWlGK]

Flashback, 1989: 

It’s registration day at North Shore Community College, where I’m enrolled for the fall semester. I’m just out of high school and angry at the world for a variety of reasons. I’ve been working long hours in my father’s warehouse in Saugus, and I’m rubbed raw. I’m frustrated because a girl I like is getting cold feet about the idea of hooking up with a loose cannon like me. It doesn’t take much to trigger a temper tantrum.

That day I was rattled hard by the long lines of college registration. I wasn’t expecting it and was full of fear that I wouldn’t get the classes I needed. Not that it really mattered, since my major was liberal arts.

Two hours in, I realized I had to give them a check for the courses I was taking. I had no money and panicked. They allowed me to drive to Saugus to get a check from my father. I was in full road rage mode on the drive there and back, crawling up the bumpers in front of me, riding the horn and yelling out the window with tears running down my face. Clearly, the world was coming to an end at that moment.

By day’s end, I was breathing into a bag between the chain of cigarettes I was smoking.

I still get claustrophobic and somewhat anxious in traffic jams. Yesterday was a prime example. I-93 north was a parking lot and it took nearly two hours to get home. I was already tired and under the spell of winter-induced depression.

But I got through it without a tantrum. I’ve developed a nice meditation for moments like these.

I’ve been drinking tea on the ride home, turning the typically hour-long commute into a break time of sorts. I crank up the music and get comfortable. I do a little praying. In yesterday’s case, I prayed for the safety of anyone who might have gotten hurt in an accident up ahead. I did some breathing exercises I learned in a recent mindfulness class.

I was still pissed and cranky when I got home, especially since I had to get right back in the car a short time later to take one of my sons to his Cub Scouts meeting. But I wasn’t a freaked-out madman.

That’s progress I can be grateful for.

I’m also grateful for Erin. I always am, but yesterday, knowing I was thrown behind the eight ball, she did some of my chores for me. That took a load off my shoulders.

Thanks, honey.

Road Rage

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I’m a Hot OCD Mess Today

I’m admittedly failing to control my worst OCD impulses this morning. I’m trying to assemble a slideshow for my work website and a vital application keeps crashing. It’s a busy day ahead, with blog posts to write and meetings to sit through, so this isn’t the best time for an app to fail me.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:7qSPdNGrKbaqLg6HqflCoZ]

I’ve heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. So for a half hour, I kept trying to restart the work app, getting the same result each time. When I finally slammed the mouse down in anger, making the screen go black for a moment, I realized that I had let my demon get the better of me.

So instead of following my insane impulses, I’m writing this post.

I’d probably be doing better at this had I not started to lose my grip yesterday. The blinders fell over my eyes sometime during the drive home, and I spent the rest of the day operating out of sync from everything around me. I went to bed angry about it and woke up that way. It was a perfect setup for trouble.

I don’t see this as a reversal of all the progress I’ve made in managing my OCD. This morning’s scenario used happen multiple times a day. Now there are much longer spaces between the bad episodes.

But when I have a bad episode, I have to be real about it.

I’ve said it before: OCD is a two-faced bitch. Some days it gives me the boost I need to get a lot done. I came into the office this morning expecting that flavor of OCD to show up and power me through slideshow-, blogging- and newsletter-making before 10 am, when I have two meetings in a row. Instead, the wrong OCD showed up.

It happens. I’m moving on and will do the best I can with this day. Chances are that it’ll turn out to be a pretty good day.

Time to try making it happen.

Face in the Wall

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Out of My Head

Like anyone with a mental disorder like OCD, I spend a lot of time locked in my head. My thoughts will be on what I’m doing the next day or a year out. Or they’re in the past, replaying scenes from long ago. Last night I began the mission to get out of there.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:7yqO8vYeyf8ahnLj9vOZ4G]

It was the first night of my Stress Reduction and Mindfulness class. The instructor is my therapist, though the other students don’t know that. He tells me this is the first class to include one of his patients. I entered a room full of yoga mats, cushions and funny little benches that look like the kneelers they put in front of the coffin at wakes.

“Fuck,” I thought to myself. “Right out of the gate we’re doing yoga.” I’ve resisted doing yoga forever. I don’t have a good reason for that. I guess I think it will just bore me.

In the end, we used the mats for a lie-down exercise designed to make us aware of our bodies and what they’re doing and feeling. A couple people fell asleep.

We practiced eating mindfully, taking a single raisin and staring at it, rolling it in out hands and keeping it in our mouths for a while before swallowing.

We left with homework. Among other things, I have to eat an entire meal mindfully instead of scarfing it down per usual. I also have to take an activity I do almost daily and do it mindfully, taking note of every aspect of the activity as I proceed. For fun, I think I’ll try this while shaving my head.

I can stare at the razor and look at its detail, stop every time I cut myself and study the pattern of the blood dripping from my scalp before washing it off. I’ll take note of how the water feels when rinsing off the cut. I can note the difference between the feel of a clean razor and one that’s getting clogged with my stubble.

I could also practice my guitar mindfully, noting the feel of the strings and the sounds I get as I randomly launch chords from up and down the neck. I’ve already discovered that you can’t really play the guitar without being mindful of every step. I can’t, anyway.

The ultimate goal is to be able to pay attention to every detail when I’m talking to someone or doing any number of other daily tasks where my mind tends to drift.

This should be interesting.

Mindfulness